Fifty Shades of Whatever Karkat's Blood Color Is
by stupiddumb
Summary: Nepeta writes a story and it becomes an Alternian bestseller. It becomes Karkat's favorite book, so he decides that he absolutely must meet the author.
1. Chapter 1

_The cat princess fell right into her knight's arms as he leapt to save her from the clutches of the evil dragon'yyd monster pursuing them. She swooned as she gazed into his black eyes that glowed with determination, as he ran forward, desperately trying to save his love. But before they could get away, the knight tripped! The dragon caught up to them quickly, her wings flapping and then coming to a halt. The princess huddled herself into his arms, trying to ignore their imminent doom, and the blind dragon opened up her mouth, roaring-_

"H3Y N3P3T4!" Terezi ran up behind her friend and bopped her on the head playfully with her staff. "DRUB! H3H3H3," she giggled.

"oh, hey terezi!" Nepeta scratched her head and quickly shut her notebook. She wasn't normally one to keep things from her friends, but this was incredibly personal.  
"WH4T W4S TH4T QU1CK FL1PP1NG NO1S3 1 JUST H34RD?"

"its really nothing..."  
"1TS SOM3TH1NG. DO 1 SM3LL S3CR3TS, M1SS L31JON?" She smirked and felt around on the surrounding table for Nepeta's little book, which Nepeta quickly snatched away. Terezi, in retaliation, reached under her friend's armpits and tickled mercilessly. The cat girl giggled uncontrollably and dropped the book, which Terezi then bent down and grabbed. As she flipped open the book and almost put her tongue to the page, Nepeta shouted-

"um terezi its kind of purrsonal!" The blind troll stopped and recoiled.

"OH 1 S33. PL34S3 DO R34D M3 SOM3 OF YOUR SMUTTY FR13NDF1CT1ON WH3N YOU'R3 DON3 TH3N," she cackled, and she walked away, her cane smacking the ground. Nepeta exhaled a sigh of relief. _If she read this I'd be toast, _she thought as she continued writing.

Her name is Nepeta Leijon and she is painfully flushed for a certain Karkat Vantas. She could never tell him how she feels; never in her life would she manage to. Not by choice.

So she writes this story in hopes that she can get over it in a productive manner, at the recommendation of her moirail. But all this story did was served to give her hope; hope that someday she would possibly get to smooch Karkat and tell him how he is one of the best people she'd ever met.

But until then, she would settle for the fictional kitty princess version of herself going on adventures with the fictional knight version of her crush.


	2. Chapter 2

Author's Note: thank you so much for the reviews, everyone :33 katnep is my otp and i just have a lot of feelings about it. i hope you all like it in the chapters to come. confuses me a lot, but i just am so glad you all like my story.

His name is Karkat Vantas, and as of recent, he has been on a romance novel kick.

Libraries are a thing on Alternia, and damn, does he utilize them. Of course the elderly, lowblooded woman at the counter eyes him suspiciously when she sees him checking out three particularly intense novels about romance; the flipping quadrants, the deceit, the passionate (be it caliginous, pale or flushed) scenes in which the trolls involved express their love (or hate) . God DAMN, did he love these books.

Yet something seemed lacking about them. Whilst the stories depicted care and passion, they seemed to lack just that. Their authors quite obviously didn't care a whole lot about their characters or story. He'd try to write some on occasion, but they never exactly came out the way he wanted them to, be it because of his limited experience with romance or lack of understanding of the principles of writing. The only real romance he'd ever really experienced was with Terezi, and even then, it was complicated. Very, very complicated.

So one could only imagine his reaction when he finally read the bestselling book, entitled "Fifty Shades of An Anonymous Blood Color".

"I BET THIS IS GOING TO BE REALLY FUCKING STUPID," snarled Karkat internally as he read the rave reviews inside of the cover. At first he was skeptical, of course.

But then he began to read. The narrative captivated him immediately. He was pulled into the story; the knight rescuing the princess from a dragon was an awfully played-out trope, but it seemed to pull him in. It's like the author really cared about the characters, like they had written themselves in. He found himself relating to the knight and his troubles, and simultaneously feeling sympathy for the feline princess. When Karkat looked up from reading the novel out loud to his lusus, transluscent red tears streamed down his face and his custodian wiped them off gently with his claw.

"SORRY I'M BEING SUCH A SENTIMENTAL DOUCHEWAGON TONIGHT," sobbed Karkat, "IT'S JUST, THIS BOOK IS SO...SO..." he trailed off, trying to find the words. The crustaceous lusus seemed to understand, as he clacked his claws and screeched. Karkat smiled and put the book down. It was time for him to get to sleep, anyway.

In the past, Nepeta Leijon sighed as she clicked and clacked at the computer.

"its no use kanaya, ive got a horrible case of writers block!" She typed.

"What About Writing From His Perspective," suggested Kanaya.

"oh its absolutely no use! i just give up. this is pawntless! as if karkitten would ever care about me anyway." Nepeta slumped down. "this story is dumb."

"I Think You Should Just Publish It As It Is," Kanaya continued.

"im too fed up with it right now kanaya, why dont i just give it to you for safe k33ping?"

"Alright."

Nepeta pulled her tiny olive notebook out of her pocket. She placed it into the sendificator and set the coordinates to Kanaya's hive and pressed the button.

"did you get it?"

"Yes I Did Recieve The Book"

"good, im so glad that thing is out of my sight! ugh! im going to bed, goodnight kanaya," and like that, Nepeta had signed out of Trollian.

Her name is Kanaya Maryam and she believes that Nepeta's story deserves to be read by others.


	3. Chapter 3

Author's Note: Hey guys, it's been such a long time. I'm really sorry it took so long for me to update. In between my computer quite literally exploding, writer's block, school, and of course, that drowning feeling of inadequacy, I haven't really been able to write more. But right now I'm putting (buttloads of) AP homework aside to write this. I'm sorry if this isn't really up to par, but I'm getting back into the swing of things. Thank you so much for the kind reviews, they mean so much to me. Also, I'm working on fixing up the past chapters to be a bit less horrible, and also fitting in with the direction I'd like this to go. Anyway, the story!

Nepeta flopped down on the floor of her cave.

"Pounce, why can I never do anything right, especially in the the context of romance?" She wondered aloud to her lusus. Pounce curled up next to Nepeta and began grooming herself with her two mouths. "I'm usually right when it comes to ships," she motioned to the colorful wall next to her, "but when it comes to my own purr-suits, be they red or black, I just…" she whispered. "…Falter." Pounce nuzzled her charge's shoulder and purred.

"Don't worry, Nepeta. You're a fine young lady, and you're def-fur-nitely not a failure romantically. You do have Equius, after all," she meowed. "You're so young, anyway, and you have quite a long time until you absolutely have to worry about romance."

"Then why can I never act on my romantic…whatever? Why can't I ever get up the guts to tell Karkitty that I…" she choked in the middle of her sentence, and a few tiny, translucent, olive tears fell from her eyes. "Sorry I'm so whiny, Pounce, it's just that I know I could never talk to Equius about this…"

"You're just shy, that's all. You don't even need to worry about it." She rested her paw on Nepeta's face. "I believe in mew."

A few miles away, Kanaya stood in her room, the little book in her hand. She really didn't know what to do about her friend's predicament. On one hand, she did realize that it was Nepeta's personal story that she'd tugged from the dark, sugary abyss that was her soul. It showed her innermost thoughts and emotions, in addition to basically putting her romantic aspirations out into the open. She didn't want it published, of this Kanaya was absolutely positive.

But at the same time, she knew that Nepeta needed more recognition. The cat girl was such a skilled writer, even with her somewhat frivolous attitude and ideas. Kanaya eyed the rainbow drinker novels on the bookshelf across the room. Then again, what room did she have to talk? She smirked.

When she looked back to her computer, the Trollian icon had lit up. Someone was trolling her.

She clicked it and saw the rare navy text of one centaursTesticle. Equius never messaged her, she thought, so what could be the occasion?

"Forgive my seemingly random message," it read, bearing his signature quirk, "but it seems I've run into a problem, and I don't exactly know who else to talk to about it." Kanaya blinked. Why would Equius of all people be coming to her for any sort of problem? He had always come off as the sort that could take care of his own problems, and if not, he could just talk to Nepeta about them.

"What seems to be the problem," Kanaya inquired, careful to capitalize the first letter of every word.

"It's Nepeta," he sent. "She's been acting so odd lately, and won't talk to me about anything. She has been so… secretive."

"I am sorry to hear that."

"Sometimes she goes offline for hours at a time, and on occasion she lashes out, cursing at me and telling me to leave her alone." Kanaya giggled. Would Nepeta really do all of that? The idea of little Nepeta swearing at Equius tickled her. "She's never been like this towards me." He paused for a minute. "Nepeta is always so joyful, so it is sort of strange to me that she would be so standoffish."

"May I inquire as to why you are coming to me about this," she sighed.

"She had mentioned that you and she had been corresponding about some project she is working on. I demanded she let me read it, but she refused."

"A true disaster," Kanaya typed out, her words dripping with sarcasm.

"Could you—no, I command that you enlighten me on the subject of Nepeta's emotions. I suspect that since she has been talking to you so often, you would be aware of the state of her feelings."

"I apologize. I wasn't aware she was becoming so hostile. Perhaps I could speak with her, if you'd like."

"Yes. That would be most ideal."

Kanaya shut her husktop. Talking to him was exhausting. Bluebloods were exhausting.

She glanced back at the little emerald book in her hand. It was tiny, just a bit bigger than her hand, and bore the Leijon symbol on the front of it. How fitting for her, thought Kanaya, and opened it. On the inside front cover it read, in Nepeta's bubbly handwriting:

"PROPERTY OF NEPETA LEIJON. NO ONE ELSE. (NOT EVEN YOU, EQUIUS!)"

Around it, Nepeta had drawn little kittens with two mouths, hearts, and even a little caricature of herself. Kanaya smiled halfheartedly and continued flipping through it. The first few pages were full of little doodles. Of course.

But then the story began.


	4. Chapter 4

_In a little castle lived a tiny meowbeast troll princess. She had green blood and hunted her own food, and lived with her lusus._ _While she wasn't exactly the princess of all of Alternia, she ruled over her little kingdom of lowbloods, and they were very loyal to her, bringing her presents and playing games with her. In return, the cat princess ruled over them kindly, helping out those in need. Anyone could reliably call upon her for guidance; the princess was always glad to help her people._

_But for some reason, she didn't have a prince or a princess to call her matesprit. While many in her kingdom adored her for her kindred ways and gentle spirit, no one saw her in a red way. She was nearing eight sweeps old, as well, and she knew the imperial drones would be coming around for her buckets any day. She worried endlessly about her romantic troubles and how to fix them, and sometimes wept, her nights filled with anguish and olive-colored tears._

_One day, however, a knight strode into town, clad in all grey. His horns were nubby and his manner was sullen, and when one looked into his dark eyes they could see a warweary soul, one that had done some grieving, but also one filled with bravery. The people of the cat princess' small village began to talk and ask questions. Who was this anonymous-blooded troll, they would ask, and why is he in our town? _

_The princess met him in the middle of town. She looked upon him and saw someone with a kind heart and said,_

_ "Hi! My name is Tenepa Lijoan, and I'm the princess of this town! What's your name? Do you want to play a game with me? Maybe we could play pretend! Or maybe we c-" _

_ "I haven't gotten the time for your frivolities," the knight growled. "I'm here on important business. I have to warn the ruler of this town that a great evil is coming."_

_ "Oh, well, um, I kind of am the one that resides in rulership over this town, sir!" She stumbled over her words, trying to stay polite. "I'm the princess."_

_ "I said I haven't gotten time for your pathetic games. I'm—" He looked upon her from his steed. The moonlight shone upon her short black hair and radiated off the sparkles of her dress. He then saw the little golden tiara she wore upon her head so daintily, and the disappointed expression on her face. "…I'm terribly sorry, your highness." He then held out his hand and helped her onto his horse. _

_ "It's okay," she giggled. "But I never caught your name, sir!"_

_ The knight looked at her with slight trepidation in his eyes, then mumbled;_

_ "__Katank Vastar, your majesty." _

_ Riding off toward the castle, the princess held onto him tightly. She could tell there was something vastly different and mysterious about this knight, but she couldn't put her finger on it._

_ Either way, she could already tell he was definitely someone special._


End file.
